You get to have season tickets to watch UM football for 250 buck and you're crying because you might not get in the first 10-15 rows? Dude, I live 2000 miles away and they chances of me ever seeing a UM football game live are slim to none. I would gladly pay triple what you pay for season tickets for any seat in the big house to watch The Game. Unfortunately for me it would cost triple your triple for me to be able to do it so it won't happen anytime soon.

My point is there are a hell of a lot of people who would gladly pay what you do and sit in the seats you sit in without a hint of complaint. They would arrive on time and stay for the entire game and cheer the bloody asses off. Now you expect those people to feel bad because you guys actually have to show up on time, or heaven forbid maybe even a little early to see a game? I would camp out for a week for the chance at good seats for the OSU game, I'm just sayin'.

This is what they do at the university of Oregon and Oregon state. I live in Eugene. Granted, the tickets are "free" and you get them the week if the game. Still, if you don't swipe your card (ie miss) two games you got tickets for, you lose privileges for the rest if the year. And if you do it the following year penalties get worse. No fing around at Autzen.

I'm tired of students feeling entitled to great seats simply because they're seniors. Most of these no-show kids end up going to 1 or 2 games (coming late and leaving early) and then they sell the rest of their tickets for a profit. I think it's silly that the school subsidizes their tickets if they're not going to even use them and then sell them to some ND or OSU fan on craigslist.

I'm surprised it hasn't been mentioned, but the "good" seats really aren't very good. I was on the 9th row last year, and because of the slow rise, you end up not being very high off the field. The seat I got around the 35th row for UTL was actually much better.

I'm in favor of GA, but I'm under no illusion that this will cause the stadium to fill up -- especially when they are bumping up the price on student tickets.

This will cause people to show up earlier for games in order to get good seats, which will mean that there will be more people at the stadium AT GAME TIME. However, if you can't get 25k students to show up without GA, you can't get them to show up with GA.

One possible solution: create a website for students to sell their tickets to each other. Right now, law students (I am one) post their tickets for sale on LawOpen. I'm sure there's an equivalent for undergraduates, medical students, business students, etc. However, if there was a place to offer up tickets to the full range of UM students (including those on other campuses), then it would be significantly easier to get tickets to those that will use them.

Penalties and such only adds to the confusion, and trimming down the waitlist undercuts the whole "hook 'em while they're young" philosophy. I am a HUGE fan now (as my profile name suggests, I'm from the East Coast where college football doesn't exist), and a large part of that is because the policies are so damn student friendly. I'd probably be a huge fan regardless, but having great seats in a huge student section doesn't hurt one bit.

As a former MLaw student, I have to admit that law students are the worst fans. 1Ls are too busy studying; 2Ls are often in other cities for interviews (or catching up on reading) and 3Ls are just so "done with school" that they rarely partake in student activities (and are prone to arriving late and leaving early).

That being said, as you alluded to, student tickets have a large amount of economic value since the tickets are highly subsidized (in addition, for key games, market value far exceeds face value).

Therefore, I support GA because it gives the most economic value (i.e., better seats) to those who show up on time (which is behavior which we should all value). Further, by taking away from the seniors (or 3Ls) the opportunity to sell "great seats" (since student GA tickets will now have the same face value and market value), this change will effectively diminish the economic value for those who simply want to profit off ticket re-sales and have no interest in attending the games.

I loved my sweet 30 yard line tickets during law school. (I was at Michigan for Undergrad too.). Michigan football was all that kept me sane during those three years. Didn't miss a game, and was never late.

Most of the law students you described didn't buy tickets anyway.

“Your satisfaction lies in your illusions/ But your delusions are yours and not mine”

Dave Brandon and every major former ath. begged the students to show up to the game on time. Many schools count on students enhance the home field advantage. Unfortunately, getting too drunk the night before the game and sleeping off their hangovers was more important. Ironically, if the 3000 people that have already signed the "petition" had showed early for the game we would not be having this discussion. Fortunately there are plenty of people that are fine with the GA set-up.

You are gonna sit here and act like its every student that gets drunk and shows up late? Or that every student is some dumb freshman that doesn't show. The vast majority of us shouldn't be taken down with the drunk greek kids and no shows.

Sure, there was some GA seating before. But if a group of drunk sorority girls got to the game in the 2nd and told you to get out of their seats you tell them to F off.

The current system basically reserves those seats you earned until the game starts. You can sit with larger groups of friends all you like as long as you are moving further up to do it.

As a student that will be a Sr next year I am pissed. I spent 3 years up high, working my way down to better seats, just to have that essentially taken away thanks to some crappy minority.

You can still get a good seat. You will just have to be committed. I'm a freshman. I had to show up early to get good seats for basketball. GA ensures that the most committed kids get the best seats. If you want a seat down low, show up early.

"...a fellow who stands athwart history, yelling stop, at a time when no one is inclined to do so."

Why do you think you wont? 3-4 hours early for good seats to some basketball games with GA was not unusual at all. Why would it be different for football? In order to get the best seats, people will be there for a long time. Look at how it goes at PSU.

Do what I did when I was a senior - get to the games 2 hours early with some friends and you can have any seat in the house. Sorry you don't like the policy, but I've been to too many games in the student section over the years where fair weather fans ended up kicking out hard core fans like yourself from the good seats halfway into the first quarter. F that.

unfortunately it seems like most people here don't give two licks about us rising seniors who showed up an hour early to every game over the past 3 years and sat in crappy endzone seats for 2/3 of thos years

I don't have a strong opinion either way on GA seating. But I do feel strongly that the OP should not post a petition and ask people either to sign it or quietly ignore it, as though this was his personal Facebook page.

"You will suffer humiliation when the team from my area defeats the team from your area." -- The Onion

Well no shit Sherlock! That is because people want tickets to the game and the student section uses up valuable prime real estate. Those 5400 empty seats could be sold at a small discount and make the AD and fans pretty damn happy. That's called a win win situation, versus a lose lose which our current method is providing. Bring on GA and eventually restricting it, if people don't get their priorities straight. Get your head out of your butt!

Well...yeah. I do think that's what a half-empty student section looks like. What else would it look like?

I mean, you don't see thousands of empty seats when the cameras pan around the stadiums at Alabama or Oregon.

And yes, I think you're right, only other M fans care...but that doesn't mean other people don't notice when kickoff happens and our student section looks like it's been pulled out of a Georgia Tech home game.

I'm a freshman, and I buy tickets off of students not going for less than $20 all the time for friends from other schools who want to experience a game or friends back home. There's a huge supply of tickets. For the Northwestern game, I bought like 6 extra and had to turn people down offering me.

I think with the rise of the Common App, there aren't as many entering fans as there used to be, and they don't understand the tradition. But they buy tickets anyway and contribute to the problem of apathetic students. Doesn't completely cover all the reasons why this is an issue, but I'd say it's part of it now. It's not like the RR years when you could just attribute it to a bad team.

When I was a student, I hated....H-A-T-E-D having to deal with any form of assigned seats. Like many die hard fans, I got to a number of the games 1-2 hours early and did the de facto GA thing so I could get seats in or around the front row on the 10 yard line. As the years went by, it became tougher to do this because too many whiny, fair weather students who couldn't be bothered to show up in time for the kickoff would start bitching to the ushers that people were in their seats. They would then proceed to take the seats in question and barely pay attention to large portions of the game.

I think this GA idea is great. Put simply, it rewards the students who actually give a shit about the team. Almost all of the students who go to the games live on campus and don't have classes on Saturday. There's really no reason to show up late, unless there are more important things for you to do on your college Saturdays besides watching football. And if that's the case, good for you - you're probably a more well rounded person than I am. But if you don't care enough to be there on time, then it shouldn't bother you if you have to sit in row 73 instead of row 2.

This petition is a joke. The people who are bitching about this could solve the problem by setting an alarm clock 30 minutes earlier on Game Day Saturdays. I will never ever EVER support a petition that justifies preferential treatment for fair weather fans who go to the games just because it's the cool thing to do.

You're in the STUDENT section fergodsakes......you're supposed to be the craziest fans in the building, not the younger clones of the apathetic, snobbish alumni in Section 20!

everyone uses the drunken student who shows up in the 2nd quarter to argue for GA, but what about the students who want to enjoy the pre-gaming, but still show up on time? when i was in school, we'd party on state street until 11:15, then head to the stadium. we were always on time (or early) and always cheering very loudly. i feel like this is the majority of students, and they're the ones that get screwed by this because now they have to choose between pre-gaming or good tickets.

i'm not trying to argue for the previous system either. as brian has suggested many times, give out points based on previous attendance. 1 point for making it to the game, another for being early. you can get points for non-revenue sports as well. i can't imagine that technology would be so difficult. that way, the avid senior still has preference over the avid underclassmen because he's had more years to accumulate points.

Call me crazy, but I always thought post-gaming was much more fun than pre-gaming, especially after wins. Its damn difficult to booze it up at 10am and then rally to tear it up that same evening. Anyway, your point is well-taken. Kids will just have to re-set their priorities or accept lesser seats if they choose to put an emphasis on pre-gaming.

students are 18-22 and their tolerance is high .... i had 30 games as an undergrad and was up by 6 or at the latest 7 for every game including UTL (had to pregame Gameday after all) and went out after every single one because its a football saturday. I also missed kickoff only once because I judged getting a friend the medical help they needed was more important than the 3 minutes against a MAC team that I missed (if hard but proper choice leads you to question my fandom, i will point out that i stood hrough the entire "08 nw game i`n which even though i dressed for the weather, I am not sure I have ever been as cold/wet/miserable)

Also Pregame >>>>>>>>> Postgame.

Aa has way too many out of town colleged aged kids to make going out special on saturday nights. The bars lines are massive and if you want to throw a party, randos who arent even students act like it is their right to drink your booze.

Again, this policy won't fix the issue of fans not showing and the only people it screws are the fans who love to preparty and could care less about the pregame stuff (I love and respect our band but Im not going to see them). There is a massive crowd of students who do the state or hill area pregames, leave around 45 mins before kick, and always make it into their seats around 15 minutes before kick. These are good fans, you are screwing them

I don't see this as an "or" decision. I would always go home, watch the 3:30 games (usually napping through the 2nd and 3rd quarters), then rally for the post-game celebration that night.

To be fair though, if kids are willing to skip the pre-game to get there early, I suppose they deserve the front row. It just sucks they have to make that decision. I loved every aspect of game day, and pre-gaming was a big part of that.

life isn't fair.
But it also doesn't cost much to implement MCard swipes, i imagine.
(Disclaimer - i graduated 2 years ago and was never late from 2007-2011 (yea 5th year), went to away games etc, so this change doesn't affect me)
It's just that it isn't much to ask for a better system with the increased price in student tickets.
GA is definitely better than assigned seats. But there could be other changes to GA that improves it even more. Especially when it can reward students who do show up on time while not requiring them to line up 3 hours before the game.
I feel it's justified given the revenue they make, to ask for a little more than simply throwing a Full GA out there and say "life isn't fair".

It's not about it being row 50 if we get there 15 minutes early. Its about the fact that we were forced to deal with being in row 70, 80, 90 for our first couple years, eagerly and patiently awaiting the games where we would be down in front. And now, in order to get what we have waited for, we need to miss 2 to 3 hours of pregame fun.

I don't know about that with the pre-gaming. My MBA buddies seemed to think that getting that one last round in of flip-cup was important enough to be late. I disagreed and left early(establishing seating for the group), but it's a definite thing that if no consequences or even incentives are provided for showing up on time then this is the behavior you get. I like the GA idea, at least it's a step in the right direction.

Chaos is found in greatest abundance wherever order is being sought. It always defeats order because it is better organized.

I still don't get why everyone here is supporting going full GA or assigned seats.

How hard is it to implement MCard swipes to track attendance/on time record.
Combine that with GA seatings in blocks, where MCard record and contributions to the school (whether student is on other athletic teams, glee club, solar car, class standing, credits, volunteer etc, whatever AD deems appropriate) gives you the ability to select a certain block preference at the time you apply for tickets.

Then enforce GA by block. By the time the band takes the field (~20 mins before kickoff?), if a good seating block isn't filled up, then other students can move in and take those seats.
This ensures students who earned their preferred seating block/section won't have to show up 3 hours early to the game, while making sure they arrive at least 20 mins (or whatever cutoff time they set) early for the game to save those seats.

Boom. No line problem. No entitled students who show up late.
And when people consistently shows up late they don't get the ability to choose better blocks/sections/rows as MCard is tracked.
In addition, it rewards students who contribute most to the school, as long as they abide by the rules (arriving 20 minutes early.)